James Geer tenor
Ronald Woodley piano
Resonus RES 10381
As lovers of British music, we should be especially proud of the English song tradition which you can date back to the Middle Ages. These three composers may not initially be associated with song, but word setting word was clearly important to them and their approach is almost never ’run-of -the mill’.
First Eugene Goossens. Not surprisingly for a man who lived and worked for a while in Australia and also who conducted the first British airing of The Rite of Spring, his music has more of an international flavour as you can find in works like the Concertino for Strings (1928). His songs are also wide ranging in emotional impact and style. The first six tracks are devoted to his Chamber Music, settings of James Joyce. They are tinged with an English accent, but no more I feel.
Howells’ songs one could say are more in the English pastoral tradition. He, along with Bliss, Goossens, Arthur Benjamin and Ivor Gurney was a pupil at the Royal College in the years before the World War I. Bliss thought Howells the most naturally talented of them all.
Goossens and Bliss are 1920s urbane, Howells is more reflective of an old vanishing world. This is especially heard in the setting of Fiona Macleod’ s poem Longing. Also, note the modality in his melancholy setting of Shelley’s A widow bird sat mourning. Understated and subtle, a remark which also applies to his setting of Blake’s The Little Boy Lost.
It often strikes me that Arthur Bliss was a man of the ‘20s. This is when he was at his most radical, and, arguably, most interesting as is heard in the extraordinary Rout for orchestra and soprano (1920), no wonder he and Charles Stanford didn’t get on. His setting of Thunderstorm on this disc is, I feel curiously, set in a popular Tango rhythm. How interesting though to compare it with the almost childlike simplicity of his setting of Sailing or Flying and Tulips written for the Westminster Society of Handicapped Children as late as 1970. Yes, Bliss could be, and often was, an eclectic composer of much sensitivity .
I found myself warming very much to James Geer’s approach to these songs. He is an artist, along with his perceptive and supportive accompanist, who puts the wishes of the composer first and then interprets how best to achieve it. These pieces, I assume, were largely unknown to them, and probably performance opportunities would be few if any. I can only recommend this selection by saying that it will give much pleasure.
Review by Gary Higginson